Jesse has been a Davidson Young Scholar (YS) since 2002, when he was a second grader, and our time with the Davidson Institute has really been a series of success stories.

It hasn't been simple to satisfy Jesse's need for educational depth and challenge. Finding the right school setting has entailed more understanding of aspects of profound giftedness, and more research into educational strategies than we ever could have hoped to manage on our own. We really would have been lost.

Our Family Consultants have always been an important guide each time we have been stuck in a mis-matched school situation and have needed to puzzle through what to do next. They've helped us find and weigh alternatives, and to anticipate the pros and cons of each choice.

Along the way we've learned about grade skips, homeschooling, misdiagnosed disorders (corrected by a professional they helped us find), asynchronicity, study skills vs. aptitude, and more. Jesse was able to get through elementary and middle school thanks to a combination of grade skipping and subject acceleration. We struggled with the high school alternatives available locally. After a year of homeschooling, which was only possible because of the knowledge shared on one of the Davidson member eLists, Jesse is now a high school junior at Stanford's EPGY Online High School.

He has been able to make the best of a variety of different schools with the tools the Davidson Institute has provided. He has also met some of his best friends through the YS program as well -- as have I, for that matter. They have never told us what we ought to do, but always enabled us to figure out how to move forward when we are stuck. The Davidson Institute has been a resource, a community and a support network. They've been our best coach.